ALEX
by Delirium Of The Endless
Summary: The daughter of supposed Vampyre, Vladimir Dracuul, sleeps away her life AND THE LIVES OF EVERYONE SHE KNOWS! Her neigbor is in love with her, but long dead. Or is he?
1. Family

My name is Elizabeth. I come from a wealthy family in Romania. While our last name means "Dragon" in other languages, you may know my father by our Romanian name -that is to say, his name is (well… WAS) Vladimir de Dracuul. That's right. The Impaler is my father, though don't go getting all freaked out, because I should tell you, he is not now, nor was he ever, a blood sucking creature of the night.

Did he go a little wacko when his first wife –my namesake- jumped off the highest guard tower along with their unborn son? Well, DUH! But the most he did was get raging drunk at the local tavern and wake up married to my mother, the barmaid, Maria Delrouse. Many failed attempts at annulment later (a year of them, to be precise) my older brother, Vlad Jr. was born. A year after him, my twin sister, Mina and I came into being. Life was pretty good. Until that fateful night…

The day before had been much the same as always. Papa went to town with Vlad and Alexander, a good friend of the family, and Mina and I stayed home with Mama to help with whatever.

Alexander was a tall, white-haired, nineteen-year-old with molten-gold eyes and skin so smooth and white that it made paper look like tree bark. I had always liked Alexander. He never seemed to mind that I wore breeches instead of skirts when I was away from the crowds or that I climbed trees like the boys. Everyone else in the village thought I was a freak, but never Alexander.

But I digress.

I was up in my room when Papa, Vlad, and Alexander returned from wherever it was they had gone (the obvious would be the tavern, but one can hope). I waved from my window to Alexander before flitting off to go change for bed. From what it would seem later, this would be the last time.

I fell asleep easily, not really worrying about anything, and certainly not thinking anything of the 'might be's or the 'what if's of life, however my dream was uncharacteristically disturbing.


	2. Dream

Towers of bones, mostly human, rose to a deep blackness from the river. It was slow-moving and in it were the faces of long ago, stained deep red with the decayed blood of a thousand lost souls and ruins of ships, temples, shrines, and cities long lost to the world. On this river of death floated a great longboat like those of the days of Vikings adorned with a great dragon, its wings forming the sails.

That was all I saw at first, but then, as the ship approached, I saw HIM. He was dim as a wraith and dressed in a cloak of shadows. All that could be seen were his bone-thin and bleach-white hands and the lower half of his face.

"Hello, Elizabeth Dracuul," he said to me as the ship neared the shore. "Have you said your goodbyes? Are you ready to board?"

He extended a long, bone thin arm to me, though I responded, "I'm sorry, sir, but I cannot come. I cannot leave my sister, my brother, my mother and father… my Alexander."

His pale, thin lips twisted into a smile beneath the shadow of his hood and he replied, "But, my dear, you have already left them." With that, he began to laugh, and it resonated through the dim lit cove. As it echoed, the ship began to depart and the cove filled with a fog, dark and green, and all the light that had been went out with the ship.


	3. 800 years?

I awoke in a cold sweat, jolting upright and staring around the room. It was the same as it had always been. It was just a dream. Just a dream.

But if it had been a dream… where was Mina? I looked around the room for her, and then looked in each of the rooms in the palace. Empty. Had they left late in the night? Alexander would know.

I lit the candles in the dressing room that Mina and I shared and donned my favorite dress. It was the black and lilac dress with silk ribbons lacing up the back of the outer corset. I loved that dress.

Before I left, I called into the great entrance hall, "Hello?" I was answered simply, "Hello?" It was only my echo.

I stepped out onto the walk, shutting the door behind me. The grounds were not the same as when I fell asleep. The great oak that I had climbed in as a child with Alexander was gone. The rosebush was nowhere to be seen. Where were Mama's tulips and mums?

I stepped off the path and headed toward Alexander's house, or at least, that SHOULD have been the direction that I was going, but nothing looked right. Strange noises came from the direction that was once a garden planted by Alexander's mother. They were like an odd rushing of a river… I shook the thought away and went on. The river of death was only a dream. The pale man was not real.

Or so I thought until I almost fell over his shoe.

"What's the trouble, Miss?" he asked me, perplexed. "Here for the festival, I see. Are you looking for someone?"

I tried to remember what Mama had taught me. Be courteous. "Yes, I am sir, but his home should be just beyond those trees."

The pale man (who was dressed very funny in blue trousers and a black shirt of some sort) looked in the direction I was pointing. "Ma'am, no one's lived there for nearly eight hundred years."


	4. A Teacher and a DeadGirl Walk Into a Bar

This scared me. "But," I stammered, forgetting proper manners in light of such a shock, "My Alexander… That's where his home is."

The man chuckled. "So you're as much a fan of Wallachian history as I. Good to meet a fellow enthusiast. My name is Jazen Marc. Did you come to see the old Blaumaro home?"

"Old? But I was there only yesterday helping Belinda and Mama clean. Don't you know who I am?"

The man regarded me for a moment, then replied, "Well, judging by your dress, I'd say an Elizabeth Dracuul fan."

"Fan? Why would I need to cool myself on such a lovely day?"

He chuckled again and shook his head. "Native Wallachian humor. I may never get used to it."

"But it's not a joke," I told him. "I am who you say, but there is no fan."

"Are you trying to tell me that you're Elizabeth?"

Now we were getting somewhere! "Yes."

"So you're a descendant?" Maybe I was wrong.

"No. My name is Elizabeth Anna Marie Delrouse Dracuul. I live here in Wallachia. My father is Vladimir, the raging drunk. My brother is the loon that nearly got us thrown out of town! I am the Princess of the Wallachian throne!" So he didn't get it at first. I would just have to spell it out nice and pretty for him. "And judging by how little you know of my family, you are a professor." None of my brother's teachers had known anything about us. That was actually why they were hired.

The look of shock faded into a grin. "History teacher, actually," he said proudly. "And I wager I know more about the Dracuuls than even you." Challenge accepted.

We debated for about an hour or so, and finally I won with a statement of, "And I am in love with Alexander Blaumaro!" which caused me to shriek and cover my mouth. How could I have said that? I was furious with myself. This just would not do.

"Do you mean to tell me that you're THE Elizabeth?" Finally!

"Yes. Although if it is in fact the year you say it is, you are certain to take me a liar, as I should have been in the ground with my beloved by now."

"Actually," he said after a moment of thought, "I believe you."

"You see?" I said, "You think me a loon like my brother. I…" then I caught on. "You what?"

"I believe you. The hair, the eyes, the dress. It all fits," Jazen told me. "How are you still alive?"

I told him I didn't know. That I had just fallen asleep and had a funny dream and here I was, eight hundred years later, confused and on the verge of tears because I just learned that Alexander had been dead for nearly as long as I was asleep.

Then he informed me that, like myself, Alex had disappeared in the night. No one had seen him since that night when he came with my father from the tavern. I couldn't let myself hope that I would see him again, for fear of crushing defeat later. It would be too much to bear, and I knew it.

So instead of going to the former home of my love, I went with Jazen the History teacher to the new tavern, which he called a "coffee shop".


	5. Coffee

The stark white of the linen curtains above the bed caught the sun and sent it sprawling across the undecorated walls of his room. Without her, he simply hadn't seen fit to adorn the walls with anything –not that there was anything worthy of distracting him from her memory. The man sighed, brushing his dark hair out of his face.

"I shouldn't even be alive now," he thought to himself. He picked up the paper and skimmed it, as usual, for any hint of old dress. She wouldn't be brazen enough to wear anything that showed her ankles. He smiled to himself. She was always so proper.

For an instant, his heart was light. There was a photo of Elizabeth in the paper! But remembering that the Dharque Festival was in only two days replaced his hope with sadness and longing once more. She would never come back to him. The pale man had won.

Alex dressed in his usual black breeches and long sleeves –he couldn't seem to give up his old fashions- and swung a messenger bag over his shoulder on his way out the door. Maybe a nice hot mocha would help.


End file.
